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The Christmas holiday season began for some with the last bite of turkey or the first rush of a
department store just after midnight.

In Licking County, it begins when the courthouse in the heart of downtown Newark lights up like
a giant Christmas tree each year on the Friday after Thanksgiving. And it’s one of the oldest
holiday kickoff traditions in central Ohio, stretching back 64 years.

A crowd of children, parents and grandparents — many of whom attended the event when they were
children — will gather on the courthouse lawn tonight by 6 to begin singing Christmas carols.

By 7 p.m., a Newark firetruck carrying Santa Claus will arrive, and the crowd will roar with
cheers and applause as he wades through the sea of families toward the courthouse.

Atop a long flight of stairs, he’ll turn to the crowd and call for help in lighting the darkened
stone building.

“On the count of three,” he will call out, “Yell ‘Merry Christmas!’ ”

It never works the first time.

Children giggle and gird for another try.

They yell. Lights flicker and go out.

The children laugh even louder.

On the third try — after a mighty chorus of “Merry Christmas!” — the building becomes a sight so
bright that it can be seen from jetliners on the flight path to Port Columbus.

The festivities take place each year in large part because a small group of volunteers couldn’t
bear to think of a year in which the 136-year-old courthouse was not decorated from its massive
foundation to the tip of its clock tower with miles of garland and thousands of twinkling
lights.

Chief among them was Bill Clifford of Newark, who was working as a newsman at WCLT radio in
Newark in the early 1970s and learned that the Downtown Association was having trouble raising
money for courthouse decorations.

He rallied some local leaders and saved the tradition. It was important, he said, because he
remembered the joy it brought to him as a boy and to so many others. Now, he said, at age 62, he
takes joy in “seeing people come down who are my age to bring their children and grandchildren
downtown — two or three thousand of them every year.”

The Courthouse Lighting Committee leads a fundraising effort for months, promoting a September
classic-car show by the Newark Rodders Car Club in downtown Newark and leading a direct-mail
campaign that brought in nearly $20,000, exceeding its goal for this year.

Some of the money has allowed for a gradual shift from more than 25,000 incandescent lights to
LED bulbs, which is expected to result in at least a 60 percent reduction in energy consumption and
allow for more lights, said Tim Bubb, treasurer of the lighting committee, who has helped raise
money for the project for more than 30 years.

“We were maxed out on our circuits at the courthouse,” said Bubb, who is also a county
commissioner. “We couldn’t add more lights or displays on the lawn without turning off something
else.”

For Jay Barker, president of the lighting committee and a Newark bank office vice president, it’s
an event that helps make a collection of individuals feel like a community — and the glue that
keeps those who move away from Newark connected to it.

“It is a piece of Norman Rockwell Americana,” he said. “It’s something to come home to. One
gentleman on the West Coast donates every year and makes a trip back every year to walk around the
courthouse on Dec. 24. His folks are both gone, and this allows him to relive some wonderful
memories.”

Recently discovered historical photos show the courthouse decked out in strings of lights as
early as 1917 for a summer reunion of Civil War veterans and in October 1929 during a national
50th-anniversary celebration of Thomas Edison’s invention of the light bulb.

But the tradition of draping the courthouse in Christmas lights started in 1949 as a promotion
to lure shoppers to downtown. It has continued long after downtown was no longer the retail hub of
Licking County, Bubb said.

“Something about seeing this courthouse dark at Christmastime doesn’t ring up well in this
community,” he said.

“It sounds a little hokey, but there is a little bit of small-town feel about a tradition like
this that makes us feel a little different and special,” he said. “And it’s not uncommon to have
three and four generations of family members standing out there. You ask people about what it means
to them, and they’ll get a little teary-eyed about seeing it. People don’t want to see a tradition
like this die.”